Thu, 17 Jan 2019 11:09:53 +0200WeeblyWed, 20 Jun 2018 04:27:26 GMThttp://www.woodenliving.net/blog/local-municipal-perceptions-regarding-possibilities-for-wooden-multistory-construction-in-finlandLast week my master study into wooden multistory construction (WMC) came to an end as the pro gradu thesis project was officially accepted by the faculty (read here). Having moved to Finland from the USA, and having had no formal education in forestry, the topic of wood construction in Europe was little known to me prior to starting my degree. However, in the research I interviewed 11 civil servants from six municipalities with the aim of identifying key personal attitudes towards the prospect of including WMC projects in city planning. A multitude of opinions were shared--too many to even discuss fully in the context of my thesis! In this blog post I will briefly share some main findings.

Using qualitative content analysis (see: Schrier 2012 here), topical phenomena discussed multiple times throughout the interviews were identified and categorized as either barriers or drivers of WMC. Categories were created for each of these phenomena and compiled into a framework. From the interviews 16 benefits emerged as drivers of WMC projects, while 18 barriers emerged as hindrances to WMC development. The framework was then cross-references throughout each interview to establish the rate at which each category was mentioned by each participant (see: Table 1 & 2).

Table 1. The number of mentioned phenomena for each 'Contributes to WMC projects' subcategory, on an interview-by-interview basis for the case of civil servants own opinions.

Table 2. The number of mentioned phenomena for each 'Hinders WMC projects' subcategory, on an interview-by-interview basis for the case of civil servants own opinions.

Three major benefits of WMC emerged: the economic benefits to local and national industries from WMC projects being supported; the lifestyle benefits which end users and residents will receive from inhabiting WMC homes; and the technological benefits of using engineered wood products which developers gain by erecting WMC projects (see: Table 3).

Table 3. Summary of main themes and advantages described by civil-servants as contributing to WMC.

The benefits described by civil servants can also work in tandem to one another. For example, the novel and flexible designs, which developers could create through wood construction technologies also allows the creation of salient and desirable lifestyle, which benefits end users. These salient lifestyle benefits in turn provide market actors with an opportunity to brand WMC projects, thereby increasing the industries economic capacity (see: Figure 1).

Figure 1. The qualities of WMC projects which contributed to project implementation directly impact one another.

Major barriers​Analyzing the phenomena described as barriers to WMC implementation revealed that the largest hindrances were often caused by the WMC industry facing market entry challenges. Civil servants rarely discussed the shortcomings of the engineered wood materials as a factor hindering project development; WMC projects are not seen to be bad products. Instead, civil servants primarily cited aspects related to a poor operating environment (i.e. topical misinformation stemming from limited access to information and the weakness of the WMC industry resulting in the inability to compete with the business as usual concrete construction industry). Coupled with the perception of limited government support for WMC, this triggers a perception of WMC project being largely high risk and high cost endeavors. (See: Figure 2).

Figure 2. Limited support for WMC projects is seen largely a result of issues triggering high cost of WMC erection. These issues include a slow-to-develop industry with limited access to information and poor government support.

​The thesis did not provide suggestions to reforming these perceptions, or how to overcome the barriers – it merely outlines a thought process shared by civil servants. In truth, more barriers were shared than drivers. Given that WMC has yet to normalize in the housing market, this does not seem too far-fetched. Still, the thesis cannot determine how civil servants value the importance of the benefits to using WMC compared to the difficulty of overcoming the barriers to implementing WMC projects.​Other actors are considered by civil servants

The civil servants were also asked to share how they believed other relevant stakeholders viewed the practice of WMC. 13 stakeholder group perceptions were shared. Of these groups, civil servants most frequently imparted opinions on behalf of public and private developers, municipality residents, and the civil-servants own municipality.

Shortcomings and future work​When writing the thesis analysis, it became clear to me just how far-reached the planning of wooden multistory construction is, largely because housing development impacts so many different stakeholder groups. Surprisingly, one whole aspect of the research was ultimately abandoned: the study of communication methods amongst stakeholders involved in WMC decision making. This would have proven to be an interesting third research question, but the robustness of the interview data and the lack of previous perception related research on WMC did not allow deeper exploration into this topic.

In the future, it would be important to explore how local government, WMC industry actors, private developers and residents interact with each other to influence housing development materials. KäPy research has already begun to explore these individual stakeholder groups (see: Katri Palonen 2017; Juho Pöyhönen 2018), but it is also important to see how these actors intersect with one another to create WMC housing demand (if at all!)

Text & images: Florencia Franzini

]]>Tue, 03 Apr 2018 05:58:12 GMThttp://www.woodenliving.net/blog/nordic-workshop-on-wood-in-construction-in-stockholm-march-2018I had a chance to participate in the Nordic workshop on Wood in Construction in Stockholm, held in March 2018. The event was a third meeting in a project that seeks to pave the way for increased use of wood in the building sector in the Nordics, coordinated by theEIT Climate-KIC Nordic. The organisation is hosting the Nordic Secratariat for Wood in Construction, since the beginning of this year, with funding from the Swedish Government and the Nordic Council of Ministers.

The Nordic project and the secretariat aims to produce a road map for how to address challenges and barriers to increased industrial use of wood in construction. The roadmap will be submitted to the Nordic Council of Ministers in June. The underlying idea of the project is to help the Nordic countries achieve the goals set forward in the Agenda 2030, especially those linked to sustainable cities as well as sustainable production and consumption. The five- hour-workshop in central Stockholm offered a good opportunity to exchange views and learn from a diverse set of stakeholders active in this field, especially in Sweden.

The workshop format was very participatory, which was a positive thing in the sense that it created a lot of interaction and discussion. The participants were mostly from Sweden and a few from Helsinki, with the majority representing research and business sectors. We were first asked to identify diverse trends that play a role in how much wood is used in buildings and construction, for instance related to urbanization and higher density of population, role of sustainability values among consumers/policies and technological advancement. In terms of identifying the barriers of increased use of wood in construction, and the best strategies to overcome them, the participants also came up with various suggestions and food for thoughts. Among those that were ranked as important to work on further, were economic valuation (e.g. identifying the added value of wood to end-users), research and education (including collaboration with companies), as well as knowledge and experience sharing among the business and other actors.

A key observation from the workshop is that there seems to be a need to study and compare further the policies, strategies and other interventions used so far in promoting the use of wood in the Nordic contexts, and the gaps in them. Moreover, mapping and comparing the outcomes of these measures, and the dynamics involved, would help to make well-informed decisions on the future strategies.

The next step in this collaborative process will be to conduct interviews among the stakeholders in the Nordic countries, and to organize another workshop in Helsinki, tentatively in early May. We learnt that the secretariat seeks to engage more stakeholders in the next workshop, and to discuss with policy makers further the policy barriers. It will be interesting to see the final recommendations from the process, and especially how they will be adopted by the Council of Ministers in the meeting, which is scheduled for June, in Helsinki.